Do you live in an old house that has cracks in the ceiling that you’d like to cover up? Or do you have plans to remove that ugly popcorn ceiling but don’t know what to do once it’s gone? I’ve got a super easy technic to texture the ceiling that will cover up cracks and modernize your space all at the same time! It’s something you can manage by yourself or better yet, team up with a friend to make it even easier!I realized that I’ve never shared how we truly accomplish this fresh new look on the ceilings of our “Fixer Uppers” before. This dining room transformation at The Craftsman on Park Road was HUGE! You can see the entire final tour of this 100 year old home here! This house was SO dreamy! There is a really awesome story that came along with this house too. Keep reading and I’ll tell you all about it!There were hairline cracks in the ceiling from just simply age! There was nothing wrong structurally, just needed some cosmetic work and a little ♥.This is the coolest trick EVER! My dad actually told us about it! Just grab an old scrap of 2×3 wood (or something similar) and a 12″ x 12″ square piece of 1/4″ plywood and attach the two together. You can screw in from the bottom into the handle and/or add 2 little blocks of wood on either side of the handle to keep it securely attached (that’s what my husband does). Then all you have to do is wrap a plastic garbage sack around the flat 12″ x 12″ piece and tie it in a knot or duck tape it to keep it secure. It’s a loose fit, you want the crinkles!We just purchase a box of All-Purpose Pre-Mixed Joint Compound 3.5 Gallon. You can find it here. We spread the compound onto the plastic with a putty knife. Just slop it on, but you don’t want it to be too thick. You want to be able to go back and easily just knock of the tips you leave behind on the ceiling after you apply the compound. Sometimes it takes a little practice. We were nervous the first time we used this method, but believe me YOU WILL LOVE IT!!! It’s such a simple, inexpensive solution and looks like a Million Bucks when it’s done!

To apply the compound to the ceiling, just simply keep the plastic covered plywood flat to the ceiling and tap, tap, tap as you work your way around the ceiling in sections. Don’t try to tackle the whole ceiling at once. Divide it up into sections by first applying the compound and then going back and lightly smooth it out like shown in the photo below.

Can you see the peaks to the right in the photo? My hubs is just working his way across the ceiling and knocking them down as he goes. It’s not suppose to look perfect at this stage, but once you paint it all…it will!!!Here’s another view after tapping the ceiling with the compound.Here it is once it’s been smoothed out. If you find you missed a spot, just add a little more. If you have more drastic imperfections to cover up, you make want to apply a heavier dose of compound and leave more texture. Just play with it and have fun!Here is a photo of the texture completed (we still have the boring light fixture up so we could see). If it got damaged, we wouldn’t care. Haha!This is a photo of the dining room before we got our hands on it. Oh, I need to tell you the story! Right after we knew this was the next fixer upper for us, I posted a picture of it on social media. In no time, I received a phone call from my dear cousin. Her son had seen the photo can called her. This was the home where her childhood best-friend grew up. I knew her, but never knew where she lived. We attended different schools but all lived in the same home town not far from each other. How cool is that? It made this venture so much more meaningful. It was such a pleasure to restore this beautiful home!

Can I just say, this home was SO much fun to decorate! You can see in the bottom photo, I was just getting ready to hang some DIY picture frames up on the wall back wall my husband made with free pallet wood. He also made the chandelier. Wish I could have taken it with me when we moved. Sad day! Luckily I have still have more parts to duplicate this chandy. Someday, I’ll have another one!!!

Please let me know if you decide to take on texturing your own ceiling. I would LOVE to hear all about it! If you have any questions, feel free to ask away. I’d be happy to help!

OK…so I’m calling this little gem “The Blue Cottage” for obvious reasons! Haha! It’s always astounding what paint can do, isn’t it? We helped our client/friend purchase this cutie for a rental property. In fact, he’s never even seen it other than photos I’ve sent him. Eeks!!! When my husband and I go searching for homes whether it’s for us or clients, I am constantly asking myself “would I or could I live here?” If the answer is “no”, then what would it take to make it livable and feel like home, or do we just need to pass? The Blue Cottage passed the test! Some homes need a lot of love, while others just need a little kiss! Here’s a “before” photo with mustard yellow accents! NOT a good look!And here is today!!! AMAZING!!! No more yellow, just fresh, clean, white paint!

I also ran around the house and touched up some blue paint too! It’s not perfect, but no house ever is!

As you can see in this photo, there are a couple of corbels. On the other side of the porch, they were missing. So I just asked my hubs to remove them before we painted! We also noticed that the light fixture was broken. It probably could have been repaired, but to be on the safe side, we just bought a new one to match the back porch light.

By removing the corbels on the left it not only modernized the look, it also made the front porch appear to be larger and more inviting. I picked out a small white lantern style light fixture. You can find it here!

Tomorrow, The Blue Cottage gets a professional cleaning and brand new stainless appliances and then she’ll be available for rent and we’ll be on to the next!!! Honestly, I would just LOVE to purchase this entire block of cutie patooties! Hey… a girl can dream, right??? It’s only money, or in our case…a lack there of! Haha!!!

So, what do think of this mini makeover? Not bad, huh? I can’t wait to see what lucky family gets to live in The Blue Cottage!

This gorgeous farmhouse is a Southern Living Design named “Sugarberry Cottage”. The source of this photo is from Brittany York. I wanted you to see my inspiration for a side screened-in porch for our new little farmhouse. Our Architect is still working on the elevation but he got me the preliminary floor plan this afternoon and I couldn’t wait to share it with y’all. After taking the final measurements of the foundation, it’s just a little over 1100 sq.ft. So when I say “tiny”, ya know I’m not kidding.Here she is!!! We will be living tiny for sure, but it will be a mansion compared to the apartment we’re staying in now. Plus, we’ll have the screened-in porch and 2 acres to spread out! Lets take a quick walk through the plan. First, I wanted to make sure we had plenty of space on the front porch. So it will be 9′ deep, it can easily accommodate a porch swing or any other furniture we ever want to have. Oh, and I want to have outdoor Christmas trees next year as well of-course! In the plan it shows a dining room table. I gave our Architect the exact measurements of our antique farm table, what he didn’t know is that our chairs all tuck in. It’s a good thing too, this should give us enough space to walk around. The immediate room to the right will be our home office/3rd bedroom. We’ll be using a barn door as the entrance. (Also to save room!) On the wall oposite the window in the office, we have plans to install built-in cabinets and a TV.

We’re adding a fireplace in the living room and possibly built-ins on either side in the future. I want to see how we feel after we’ve moved in. I LOVE how we were able to open up the kitchen and add a large island. The side door will be full glass to let more light in. The front door will be the same.

I’m super anxious to see the elevation. We’ll see how close it comes to my inspiration photo↓Source: Pinterest

Just as a reminder, this is my inspiration for the exterior – minus the garage and insert wrap-around porch.

Well, that’s it for tonight! Thanks so much for following along with us during this new adventure! Let me know what you think so far. I’d love to hear.

I feel like we’ve kind of been all over the place lately. I’m sorry if I have confused anyone. Haha. Life just seems to always take unexpected twists and turns. The Brick House on Pecan Drive closed and the new happy owners have moved in. We were planning to purchase a Farmhouse on 7 acres but it fell through, so we had to start our search over again. We have temporarily moved into a 1 bedroom, 1 bath apartment and placed most of our belongings into storage. The same thing happened to us last year, but this time I brought a lot of our Christmas decorations with us so I could still fill our little place with some Christmas cheer!Living Room

Lucky for us, new laminate flooring had just been installed. We’re the first to use them.

I purchased this pillow from Pottery Barn after Christmas last year. I was excited to get the chance to use it this season.We didn’t bring our big tree, so I found this slim one at Target. Somehow a few other items made it into my cart. How did that happen???Most of the ornaments we already owned but I got the new buffalo plaid ribbon and garland from Dillards, plus the black ornaments from Magnolia’s Hearth and Hand.I found the plaid table runner and white wood bead garland at Kirklands to dress up our antique farm table to match the Christmas tree.Now for the BEST news!!! We have found another piece of property and we close on it next week! Yeah!!! It’s a little house with approximately 1000 sq. ft. on 2 acres. It already has a shop on the property for us to work out of which will come in very handy. We have plans to build another larger one as soon as possible. But first, we have to address the house. We are meeting our Architect on-site after Christmas to go over all the plans. We will be gutting the entire structure down to the studs and foundation. We will be tearing off the roof as well. It needs to be raised. We have plans to add a full wrap-around front porch and hopefully we’ll be able to screen-in part of it on the side of the house. If not right away, later when time and money permit.

We signed a 6 month lease here at the apartment complex. We have 5 months to go and I think it will probably take about that long to remodel our new farmhouse. It’s only about 20 minutes from the apartment so it will be a convenient commute.This is my inspiration for the renovation, minus the garage. My sweet hubs is just leaving it entirely up to me. Once the Architect and I have it all planned out, he’ll take over and get it built. I’ve been having fun doodling out some ideas. By drawing out a front porch and raising the roof line, it will give the house some much needed interest and dimension.

I have actually already made some changes since I drew up this floor plan. I’m going to have a sliding barn door entering into the office instead of french doors that would take up to much real estate. So I won’t have a closet barn door in the office now, I’ll just have a regular door. I think I’m going to remove the 2 windows in the kitchen too. I need the space for storage. I’ll have a glass door entering from the side of the house that will bring in light as well as the windows and door from the living room. I’ve also added a window to the laundry room. My drawing is not quite to scale, but it’s close. I ran out of paper for the back 2 bedrooms. Haha. I know there is a 36″ vanity in the master bath right now. So we won’t have room for two sinks, but since it’s just the two of us we’ll probably each take a bathroom. Why not? I already know I’ll be using the other closets in the house for overflow. The master closet is tiny just like the house!

If we can, I want to vault the living room and kitchen with beams. The rest of the house will have 9 ft. ceilings. I’m SO excited to talk again with Architect to see what we can do and what ideas he comes up with.

We plan to stay in this house for at-least 2 – 3 years! It just depends on what the future brings. We’ve never lived out in the country before, so we have no idea if we’ll even like it. One thing we know for sure, we’re going to LOVE having the space to work. The existing shop is about the size of a 2 car garage, perfect for wood working. The new shop/barn will be much larger to accommodate our on-line business “The Sign Factory”, shipping materials, painting and photography.

Oh…and did I mention my hubs wants Chickens? Another first, for both of us!

So much to do, but it will be another memorable journey together no doubt!!!

Thanks for joining in with us as we enter into this new experience of tiny farm life!

Wow, we are only 2 days into this week and it’s flying by. My hubs and I have spent many hours in the car looking at properties for clients and keeping an eye out for land or a house for us. We just signed a six month lease at the apartment complex and neither one of us want to stay here any longer than that. We are anxious to get into a house we can call home for awhile. We LOVE flipping houses but would really like to NOT flip the home we’re living in for awhile. We’d like to stay put for a change and see what that feels like. Haha!!!

Here’s a project we’ve already started working on. We own a rental property on some acreage and we’d like to build 3 more rentals on the vacant land. We have a designer working on the floor plan right now. Our thought is to duplicate the floor plan 3 x’s but with a different elevation. It will keep our costs down. This is a tiny plan but totally efficient with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths with a 2 car garage. Once we get the final plan back, we’ll submit for septic approval. This is all we need for the county to sign off on the project. Fingers crossed!!!Here is the original floor plan my husband found while browsing houseplans.com. It looks good but I thought it could use a little tweaking. Please let me know if you have any suggestions. I’m always open to hear more thoughts and ideas.

All 3 houses will be “builder grade” so I’ll have to be creative with paint color, counter tops and flooring. I’m hoping to add-in at least 1 accent wall of texture and a pretty chandelier in each dining room.

1. The little wall separating the dining from the garage needs to go. I’ve asked the a door be added flush to the back garage wall. This will give more dining space.

2. I also think a slider in the dining room makes more sense than windows and a door, again provided more space.

3. In the master bath we’ll add a second sink.

4. The Opt. Basement Stairs will turn into a furnace space or it will be included into the laundry area. I’m leaving that up to the designer, whatever works best.

5. We’ll remove one of the linen closets in the hallway for more sq. ft. in the guest bath. This will allow the sink to move and add a tub.

6. 9′ ceilings throughout.

7. For at least 2 of the houses we will remove the window seat in the front bedroom.

Have I missed anything? Keep in mind that this floor plan is only about 1000 sq ft. It’s small but it will be cute and functional. Each home comes with a 1/2 acre in the country to roam. This is the exterior. We will change it up quite a bit. We want to simplify it with straight lines. No hip roof and square posts. I would like each house to look unique and more of a farmhouse style. The existing house that sits on the property now is a red cottage/cabin, so definitely want to keep that country feel. I think the exterior will be the biggest challenge. Hopefully our designer will be able to help me out with that.Here’s a snap shot of the red cottage. We’ll be adding a few upgrades to this little cutie as time goes on.

There is no way to know if this plan of ours will work without going through all these steps first. Luckily, we found a designer who has a pretty quick turn-a-round, easy to work with and will help with submitting the plans. We’ll just have to wait and see! As soon as we get the green light…I’m ready to start picking out all the interiors while my hubs starts the building process!

In the meantime, I’m ready for tonight’s premier of the last season of Fixer Upper!!! I’ll be sad to see it go, but if I ever need a quick fix I can just drive down to Waco. We only live about 2 1/2 hours away. It’s a FUN place to visit. The Silos and other great shops to see, plus some really good restaurants.

I’m super excited to share that the Twin Lakes Craftsman Cottage is 98% finished. I’m only waiting on a couple of special orders to come in and be installed but other than that…it’s DONE!!! Before I began this journey of building my first spec house all by myself (without the hubs as my full-time partner in this venture), I thought I could document each step, take pictures and blog about it. Silly Me!!! I didn’t have a spare moment. I have been SO busy, overwhelmed at times and SO tired by the time I get home every night. It has been an experience I will likely never forget!!! I learned so much through all the ups and downs of the building process. I can’t even count how many homes I have designed and/or staged, but to actually build from the ground up is a whole other story! Now that it’s finished, I couldn’t be happier with the results. Hope you enjoy the tour!I chose tones of gray for the body of the house with white trim and a black front door. I’ll share the exact colors in a future post. The roof is charcoal and words cannot express how much I love the carriage garage doors! They are the icing on the cake!!!Let’s enter through the front door. Your eye is immediately drawn to the beautiful Bentley Smoke laminate flooring and the gorgeous fireplace. I used Hardie Plank Siding as shiplap on the fireplace. I had to use a product that was fireproof and I had plenty left over from the exterior siding. It turned out exactly as I had it imagined in my head. My husband was the installer of this master piece including the mantel. He is my hero!!!

I have to say, the kitchen is my favorite space! I had the most fun shopping for the lighting and other finishes for this room. The biggest challenge was getting everything wired, plumbed and centered exactly where I wanted them to be during the construction phase. The pendant lights came from Wayfair and the swing arm sconces from Amazon. The little white cake plate I picked up at Home Goods and the white pitcher came from Target.I quickly made this sign the night before the first Open House last weekend to fill the empty space on the wall. My french inspired bottle drying rack would look awesome here but I didn’t think I should make big holes in the shiplap. This sign hangs on little nails that fit in the space between the boards. No one will ever know!!!Always need to have cookies at an Open House right? The top cookies are pumpkin with chocolate chips. I have to admit, I’ve tried them and they are yummy!!!The apron front sink is to die for. I wish I was moving in just for this sink!!! Can’t wait to put one in my own house someday.My electrician is extremely proud of himself as he centered up the dining room chandelier with the window as well as the barn lights in the mud room. I stressed to him how important this task was to me. He did a GREAT job!I’m still waiting for the new barn doors to come in. For some reason, the framer decided to frame the opening 2″ taller than the rest of the doorways so the barn doors we made won’t fit. I ordered new 84″ tall craftsman style doors from Home Depot and they should arrive in a couple of weeks. Hmmm…should I paint them white or black?And this is the master bedroom. I carried the laminate flooring into this space. A king size bed could easily fit in here facing the view of the golf course.Nothing missed in the master bath. It features a dual vanity, granite counter top, tile flooring with separate tub and shower.This was the BIG splurge for this space. Funny how a 6′ tub is about $600 less than a 5′ tub. Of course I needed the latter. It was worth it, don’t you think?OK, now lets make a switch to the opposite side of the house. Here’s a peek into the laundry room. You can walk straight through from the garage to the hallway/kitchen. My husband made another one of his amazing rustic sink bases and I purchased the sink online from Lowes. He also made and installed the open shelving. The large 24″ floor tiles are from Panhandle Carpet One in CDA. They had them on special months ago and I had them hold ’em for me. My brother and I installed these. I hired out for the rest of the house. I love to tile, but there are just not enough hours in a day to do everything I want to do.The guest bath is a small space with a big impact! The vanity is from Wayfair and the mirror is from Lowes. I chose a porcelain tile with the look of marble for the flooring.So there you have it! Several months of blood, sweat and tears has come to an end. Would I do it again? Absolutely! But, I need a rest and a contract on this one first! Hint, hint, smile, grin!

I’ll share more later but for now…it’s time for a sweet vacation with my hubs!!!

Yes, we finally got all the painting done inside our little cottage and placed it on the market! We already have our first offer but we’ll see what the weekend brings. I thought it would be fun to give you a final tour but also a couple of little tips that I do to make our homes look pretty and ready for showings.The weather is changing just in time. I was able to spruce up the window box with a few colorful flowers in addition to the greens. Redecorating the front porch for Spring makes a welcoming invitation to come on in and take a look.

I spent a few minutes reorganizing our pantry to make it presentable. You know everyone will open this door and take a peek.

I always turn on all the lights in the house and turn on the battery operated candles. It adds a cozy, soft glow.

We rented a storage unit for all our excess “stuff” and only kept what I needed to stage our home with.The master bath is small, so keeping it clean and tidy is the key.

Guest bathroomThis bathroom doesn’t get used so I like to play around with decorative towels. Here I used wash cloths folded accordion style wrapped in hand towels. Makes a sweet statement without spending any additional money on decorations.

I even fold the toilet paper to give a hotel/spa like feel. (OK, that looks like dust on the holder, but I promise you it’s not!)Craft room/3rd bedroomOffice/bedroom

Last but not least, the garage! We added a sink and painted the floors grey. Just one can of paint finishes a two car garage. An inexpensive way to beautify a garage!

If you’ve been following along for awhile, you know that my hubs and I love to flip homes. Lately, we’ve been unable to secure any new fixer uppers so we’ve decided to explore the possibility of building a spec home (or a new home for us and sell the one we’re in that we’ve just finished updating). We’ve found a lot we’d like to build on and I just picked up some plans today from a local architect.I love the 1400 sq. ft. cottage plans but the elevation needs some sprucing up. So, I thought I would drive around our neighborhood this afternoon and take a few pictures for inspiration. I would LOVE to hear your feedback. What do you think of these cedar posts? Our plan has three posts in the front.

This is pretty similar to our plan only with a three car garage. This house has the contrast of board & batten and lap siding. I was thinking I would like to paint our house grey with white trim and bright contrasting front door (yellow or aqua).This one is also similar to our plan which includes the third car garage. I like the shake on the upper gable and the board & batten on the front gable. I think I would like the garage doors to be the color of the trim or house with cottage style windowsThis is a home we remodeled years ago and turned it into a commercial real estate office. I like the shape of these front columns and again, the mix of siding. We should know in the next couple of days whether or not we’ll be moving forward with this new build. I’m EXCITED!!! I sure hope all the numbers work out in our favor ’cause this what we truly enjoy doing! Getting to choose every little design element that goes into a house from the ground up just makes my heart beat a little bit faster!!! I’ll keep you all posted on what develops!

When staging to sell a home a key ingredient is to depersonalize. This means all those family photos need to be packed away. I’m staging a home for a client tomorrow and needed some quick accessories so I did a little DIY picture frame art yesterday. You can do the same by just placing homemade art in front of photos you already have in picture frames when selling your home. Once your home is sold, just remove the art to expose your treasured photos once again. I purchased these frames at TJ Maxx for just $7.99 ea.I used black and white card stock to create a generic picture that could fit with any decor.First I cut out the feathers on black paper with my silhouette (could be done by hand) and placed the white paper behind it. Then did the same thing with the saying “hello adventure”. These will be hung on the wall for as inexpensive but classy art.

I also know I’ll be wanting some additional picture frames on side tables or placed on the built-in bookshelves so I made a couple more.

I also picked up these beauties at TJ Maxx for $7.99 and $4.99. I like the natural rustic wood tones in these.

Well that’s it! Pretty simple huh? I can’t wait to start decorating tomorrow and show my client all the goodies I picked out just for her house!I’m going to be a busy girl. So glad my muscle will be coming with me!!! He’s such a trooper and actually, truth be known, he really gets into it too!!!

Whowza!!! I had NO IDEA Country Living Magazine was going to mention me in their first issue of 2016. How cool is this? I found out by Readers contacting me asking to purchase the Reproduction French Inspired Bottle Drying Rack. Guess what? I was completely SOLD OUT! Eeks. Luckily I was able to order more in this morning! Whew! I truly enjoy mine so much, I’m glad others will get to have one in their homes too.Here’s the front cover of the new Jan/Feb 2016 issue.

My hubs had to take a quick photo of me with the mag. I hope to someday have one of our reno projects featured here. Wouldn’t that just be the cat’s meow???You can order your own Bottle Drying Rack here. Or, click on the “Shop” button at the top of the page.This wall rack is great for mugs, mason jars, bottles or use it to hang purses, jewelry, coats, hats, etc…

Just had to share the news with you! My little tiny claim to fame. Haha!

Now that our living room is well on it’s way, I need to address our dining room. I have my “go to” barn wood tote filled with flowers as a centerpiece at the moment and as much as I love it, it’s time to do something more “Fallish”. Since we are living back in Idaho now, I thought a more woodsy feel would be fun. I’m heading over to my brother’s property tomorrow where I can pick up branches, pine cones, etc…, so I thought I’d check out Pinterest for some ideas. I thought I would share with you a few beautiful Rustic Fall Tablescapes I found.

OK, who doesn’t love antlers and white pumpkins? I know I’m in short supply of these items, but I’m hoping I can come up with something equally as gorgeous as this. A fabulous display created by Tidbits & Twine.

Last but not least, just a big chunk of wood down the center of the table filled with fruit and mini pumpkins. Light it up with a mix of candles. Again, simple and elegant at the same time.

By the end of the week, I am hopeful our table will be a welcoming site for the season. I have such a grateful heart for the blessings we have, living close to family again and for the plans that have been set to visit all our children and grand-children and spend an early Christmas together. It’s hard to gather everyone in one spot as they grow and spread to other parts of the country (us included). But, we make it work. Dave and I couldn’t be happier!!!

Can you even believe it? After moving into our new home in July, we sat in lawn chairs for several weeks until our upholstered chairs got moved over from my brother’s barn. We’ve been anxiously awaiting the arrival of our new sofa. It took us awhile to find what we wanted, but it was worth the wait! I’m in love with it!!! After the delivery men left (who were very nice by the way), I was thinking how thankful I was to have a husband who know what I like and is OK with it! He’s the one that actually spotted this sofa in the store first and said “this is the one”. He was absolutely right!

I picked out the fabric for the sofa and the accent pillows. Since the pillow are basically thrown in for free (at-least that’s how I choose to look at it), I thought it would be fun to pick a bold print with some color. I can always rotate pillows with the seasons.

We purchased the sofa from Runge Furniture in Coeur d’Alene, ID. It’s a family owned business and extremely pleasant to work with. A quick plug for our salesman and neighbor, Richard…he’s AWESOME!!! This is not a sponsored ad, this is based off my experience. The sofa was manufactured in Oregon by Stanton.I feel like we’ve truly moved in now and the place is starting to feel more like OUR home.I placed the rug and moved around the furniture to see how things fit. By leaving the sofa table, it makes a smaller footprint but it also gives me a place to decorate and add more interest to the space. With downsizing into this home, I’ve had to leave a few items in storage and there isn’t much wall space. So, I’m going to leave it as-is for awhile and see if we feel to cramped or if it’s OK. If you have an opinion, I love to hear it!The color I choose for the sofa is “oatmeal”. I’m so happy with how it blends with all our other pieces.We’ve purchased casters for our trunk. I’m hoping to get those attached this weekend. It looks really short now. This will lift it up off the ground and hopefully bring to scale with the new sofa. The hubs really likes it as a coffee table, so fingers crossed this will do the trick! We picked up this trunk for $10.00 at an auction in Arizona.Our sofa table was made out of old barn wood from my brother’s property. It is super rustic and totally amazing. We’ve used up every bit of extra barn wood we could find. It’s so sad we’ve ran out. We always keep an eye out for more as we drive along the country roads.

I went back to the store and picked up another sack of tiny white pumpkins to add the finishing touch. These Natural Wood Candle Holders can be found here.I moved over the Market Cart from the dining room ’cause I felt like I need some height. Not only that, but it is more visible now and it’s such a fun piece and can be used for so many things.

The sun was really shining bright today as I was taking photos. I loved it. After having a couple of gloomy, rainy days, it’s been nice to have sunshine again.I took SO many photos today but I don’t want to overwhelm you so I think I’ll stop with this one. I hope you enjoyed our living room tour and seeing our new comfy couch. We got to sit together on it last night for the first time and watch a TV show. Aww…it was so nice! Of-course two of the pillows got tossed to the chairs, works for me!

What else do you do on a rainy day??? It’s a great opportunity to catch up on laundry, cleaning the house and a little rearranging never hurt anyone either! I just got a couple of new shipments of beautiful farmhouse style home decor accents. It’s all still trickling in from the LasVegas World Market shopping trip the hubs and I went on. I have a love for all serving trays. It doesn’t matter if they’re made of wood, metal, glass, etc… But if they have feet, all the better!!! I am just swooning over this set of Metal Box Trays. I am selling them individually or as a set. Just take a look!I’ve used the medium tray for this display of small plates, napkins, set of mice and candle holder (or in this case, pumpkin stand).

Theses little mice are keeping busy by keeping watch over the pumpkins and holding the napkins in place.

It’s so fun to used candle holders for something other than candles.

Trays are so useful for displaying dishes and/or beautiful desserts, etc… Or they are perfect for setting on a buffet, coffee table or even your bed to hold magazines. I have them all over our house.

Love, love, love the feet on this tray and how rustic the whole thing is.

It looks like it’s been around for years but it’s brand new!

Hope you’re staying warm as the weather is turning. I have to go out and run some errands in the rain now, but when I get back I think it will be time for a hot cup of coffee.

In case you haven’t noticed, (haha) my husband loves to build things! We went shopping one day for furniture to fill our new little cottage, but instead we just came home with ideas of what he could build. He immediately got busy with drawing up plans and writing a list of items he would need to create a TV stand with storage and shelves for me to decorate. The only spot for a TV in our house is in this oddly shaped alcove in our living room. One side has a slant which makes it difficult for someone like me to decorate. I like straight lines and everything to be centered EXACTLY. This kind of stuff drives me CRAZY!!! I would love to clad the walls or do some wainscoting but I’m just not sure how it would look. I definitely don’t want to make the unevenness of the space stand out even more. Such a dilemma for this brain of mine. Anyway, I’m happy to say my hubs did a great job in building our new entertainment center. It only cost about $65.00. Luckily, we already had a big chunk of wood in the shop to make the shelves out of. I managed to take a few pictures as the project progressed.It all started with a 12″ x 12″ x 2″ wood plank cut in half. We wanted a 6′ stand. A hand planer was used to shave off the high spots.

Then some distressing took place. We didn’t want the wood to look brand new. We wanted an aged barn wood finish.Once the wood was distressed, my husband used a dark walnut stain to complete the look.He used 12 (12″) metal pipes to build the legs. This was a dry run here just to make sure they all screwed together nicely.Then we checked out how the bottom shelf would look and where we should place the legs. He measured and drilled the holes for the piping to run through.We brought it inside to let it dry for a couple of hours before moving it into it’s final destination.And in it’s spot it went! OK…what do you see wrong with this picture? 1. There are a million wires to deal with. 2. Someone tweaked the TV when moving it, I won’t mention any names, but it wasn’t me!!! Are we going to have to tilt our heads while watching our favorite HGTV shows now? 3. How am I going to decorate around these obstacles?First things first, I had to find a larger basket for all the wires or this system was NOT going to work. I had to do some swapping of materials around the house but I found one that would fit! YAY, one problem solved.Look…it’s magic! Our TV is now sitting straight, just nobody move or touch anything!!!I used books to even out the TV. Of-course, this set the stage for the entire decorating scheme. I didn’t have much of a choice but to figure out a way to balance the whole space. This was a better solution however, then having to go purchase a new TV.Please ignore the fingerprints. I hadn’t wiped the TV down since it was moved. Opps!

Most of our home decor is still packed but these are things I could readily get to. I may do some changing around once I get everything unpacked.

I felt like I needed to anchor this side because of the basket weighing a bit heavy on the other. Plus, you can never have too many baskets.So my husband still thinks the walls look too bare and frankly, so do I. The wheels are turning and I’m sure I’ll come up with something soon.The space above the alcove is designated for a DIY sign that will say the name of our new home “Oak Harbor Cottage”. I’m excited to see how it turns out!I think this is the most I’ve shown of our new flooring too. I’ll share more photos soon, I promise! Famous last words I know! Haha!!!I’ll tell ya, I feel really blessed to have a husband who enjoys building and shopping and supports my decorating antics. We have SO much fun!!!

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that with every house remodel, new issues and problems arise. Inside I feel frustration and disappointment but outwardly, I know I just have to come up with solutions that will work and that I can live with (and still be happy). This past weekend, my hubs and I worked non-stop attempting to lay new flooring throughout our entryway, bathrooms/laundry, living/dining, kitchen and master bedroom. Unfortunately, we only got the kitchen, most of living/dining and a little bit of the entryway done. We are trying a new product and it was a struggle the entire time. The flooring is called LVP (Luxury Vinyl Plank). It looks beautiful, very durable and waterproof. Sounds wonderful right? The problem is, the planks don’t snap together easily and causes you to have to use a rubber mallet. By doing so, it causes other areas to separate (even three rows back). So we finally called it…and gave the flooring the win. We stopped and called the flooring company. We are going to have them come out and take a look and see where we can go from here. Hopefully they can either fix it or give us suggestions of what to do. We paid more for this product than the regular laminate flooring we were intending to install so…it’s NOT an option, we have to make it work. LVP, carpeting and countertop.

The carpet in the spare bedrooms was already scheduled to be installed today. We decided to just have them lay the same carpeting in the master bedroom so we didn’t have to fight with the LVP flooring in there as well. We are disappointed but it was truly the only solution. It’s still going to look good, just not our first choice. Luckily, all extra boxes of LVP can be taken back for a full refund. Kitchen meets laundry pass-through to garage. Here’s a glimpse of the LVP flooring.

We will go ahead and tile our master bath now and hopefully be able to complete the entryway and guest bath in the LVP. I don’t know what we’ll do in the laundry room since it’s connected to the kitchen. We’ll probably try to finish it with the LVP too so we don’t have a transition strip for people to trip over. We enter from the garage in and through the laundry room. Our garage is located in the back of our house from an alleyway. Our front door is rarely used.

Just a few tile ideas I found on Pinterest this morning. So pretty!

My husband was so sweet last night. He told me he just wants me to be happy. How could I not be happy when I’m married to such a wonderful man. Seriously, this is just a little design bump in the road. I’m actually kind of looking forward to tiling the master bath. There are so many gorgeous tiles to choose from. Our space is small so whatever I choose, the cost will be very little. I just feel bad that I chose this product, it cost more AND my husband’s whole weekend was spent installing something so difficult. Both of us can hardly move today. We’ve installed laminate and hardwood before and it was never this hard. We just have to chalk it up to another adventure and design experience to learn from. I’ll keep you posted as the flooring saga unfolds.

Happy Monday from my current office set up in the middle of our kitchen. We slept in the living room last night so we could clear out our bedroom. Positive note…we got to watch the finale of HGTV”s Beach Flip from bed. So happy for Alex & Martha. I was routing for them to win. LOVE their design style. However, all the beach houses were beautiful and HUGE transformations were made by all.

About Me

Greetings from the Rose Capital of the United States, Tyler Texas! I am so happy you have stopped by. Hope you find joy and inspiration during your visit. I am an Interior Stylist, House Flipper and Artist living for Jesus! I'm blessed to be working side by side with my handsome hubby everyday and I get to be grandma to six very precious little humans!!! I always welcome comments and questions. I truly appreciate all my wonderful followers! One of my favorite verses ~ Proverbs 3:5,6